BOSTON – Midway through last month the Boston Celtics were a fun, overachieving team charging up the Eastern Conference standings (or at least jogging in place while the rest of the conference dropped game after game).

But after six defeats in seven tries, including a 95-92 home loss to New Orleans on Friday night, the Celtics are now just 2.5 games ahead of the NBA’s second-worst record. Brad Stevens' team hasn't been getting blown out on most nights (three of the aforementioned six losses have come down to the final possession), but have still taken a turn for the worse.

Four games out in the Atlantic Division, the Celtics embark Saturday on a five-game road trip that features meetings with four of the top six teams in the Western Conference. And when the Celtics finally return to Boston, the dangerous Houston Rockets will be waiting.

Time to worry? Maybe.

“Every road trip is a make or break. Especially the situation we’re in,” Gerald Wallace said Friday. “We’ve lost a couple of games in a row, lost (six out of seven) games. We’re going on a West Coast trip and playing some pretty good teams. This could set us in the right direction as far as where we want to go, or destroy our whole season."

Rather dramatic, Gerald. But Wallace is right. Given the upcoming competition, the Celtics dropping their next six games isn't out of the question.

“Guys are going to have to pull together, we have to become as one on the road,” Wallace said. “And we’re going to have some tough battles. We’re going to have some battles like (Friday’s last-second, 95-92 loss to New Orleans). The only thing is, we’re going to be on the road. And we have to find ways to win these games.”

And if they don’t? I can imagine president of basketball operations Danny Ainge sitting in his office, chortling at the awesomeness of his team’s fall down the standings. For the players and coaches, a stream of close losses must be rough. But for Ainge, I imagine it’s something close to perfection.

As WEEI’s Ben Rohrbach noted Friday, “Forget tanking for a moment. This, right now, is the ideal scenario for Danny Ainge. The Celtics have been competitive, even leading by 20 on a handful of nights, but they’re tumbling down the standings and (Rajon) Rondo’s return hasn’t yet breached the horizon.”

Sure, but it must be difficult for the players not to be frustrated.

“No, it’s not,” Avery Bradley said. “Sometimes being on a young team, when you’re losing a lot of games in a row you can get down on each other. But we’ve been sticking together because our leader, Rondo, has been telling us that it’s fine. We’ve got to just continue to keep doing it as a team. That’s our mindset. As long as we take steps for it every single game, we’ll be fine.”

Bradley is pumped for the road trip.

“I’m excited,” he said. “This is why I play this game – to play against those great teams like that. It’s fun and we get a chance to go out there and prove ourselves.”